Rio de Janiero, October 26 (RHC) -- Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff spoke highly of the country's Mais Medicos program aimed at improving healthcare in small towns and isolated areas by hiring foreign doctors to work in these regions.

Rousseff said 3,800 physicians will start to work by the end of October 2013, and the figure should reach 7,500 by the end of this year. The program will benefit 46 million Brazilians, a quarter of the Brazilian population by April 2014, she said.

Last week, Rousseff signed a decree that allows the federal government to issue work permits to the foreign doctors participating in the program. The government said the doctors in the program are being evaluated, and only those who pass the training courses will be allowed to stay and work.

So far, some 2,200 foreign doctors, among them 2,000 Cubans, have successfully concluded their three-week training course as part of the program.